Just a message to say to anyone thinking of changing Broadband ISP that they should not consider Entanet Resellers Freeola (www.freeola.com) who disgracefully use 0871 numbers for all customer contact and then have the audacity to claim they are charged at a "standard national rate of 10p per minute".

I would be interested to know if they have any printed marketing material or brochures so that a formal complaint against them can be filed with the ASA.

If anyone wants to take broadband service from the good quality Entanet broadband platform then they would be better off using www.adsl24.co.uk who charge lower prices than Freeola for the same service and who now use 0800 numbers for all customer contact.

It makes my blood boil that the useless Ofcom still does precisely nothing to stop companies like Freeola claiming that 0871 is National Rate.

farci wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 2:31pm:


On their home page they clearly claim that 0871 at 10p per minute is a standard national rate and not that it is a revenue sharing rate of which they will receive x pence per minute.  I am confident that the ASA would find against this presentation if web page telephone cost claims came under their jurisdiction.

freeola.com wrote on Nov 29^th, 2006 at 6:24pm:
I have amended the thread title and removed the word in question as no proof can be found to substantiate it. However, I see nothing wrong with anything else in this thread so I have left everything else.

For the record, you still state here (and possibly other places) that your 0871 contact number is 'national rate'.  This IS misleadingand if an official complaint was made to trading standards/ASA then they would ask you to remove all references to 'national rate'.

The ASA, Ofcom & Trading Standards are all of the agreement that describing such numbers as local or national is misleading.  See here & here.  In fact ASA guidelines now stipulate you must specify the cost of the call and the fact that it only applies to BT landline and calls from other networks may cost more.  For example, "Calls cost 10p/min from a BT landline, calls from other networks may vary."

freeola.com wrote on Nov 29^th, 2006 at 6:24pm:


Incredibly you even use 0871 for your Sales number compared to 0800 for your your direct Entanet reseller competitors www.adsl24.co.uk ;  Now if using soon to be ICSTIS regulated 0871 premium rate for your main sales number isn't a folly of an incredible scale then I don't know what is.  Clearly when you took this number you did it because you were offered a nice big juicy revenue share at 5p per minute at all times or whatever and I just won't accept any ridiculous claim that you really thought it was National Rate.  The only number that was once the same as National Rate but is no longer is 0870 charged at 7p per minute plus 3p connection in the day time but only 1.5p per minute at the weekend.  Your horrible covert premium rate 0871 number still costs 10p per minute at the weekend too.

What I am really happy about though is that this site is now important enough for word of criticism of your company's 0871 number on it to reach you and it to be worth the time of a firm using one of these scam numbers to come along feigning hurt and surprise.

The only acceptable way to describe these numbers is "calls cost 10p per minute at all times from uk landlines" and to which in my view the additional words should be added "of which we receive 5p per minute because we really don't want you to call us".

There have been clear guidances from the ASA and Ofcom that these numbers must not be called National Rate.  They are not National Rate and they never have been. They are covert premium rate.  The only other people I know of who like using them are Easyjet and Ryanair who make it very clear that they don't want their customers to call them.  By the way Ryanair and Easyjet are regularly criticised for the use of these numbers on this site but they have not complained because they are quite unashamed that their purpose is to deter callers from getting in touch with them.

Many companies have been attacked here and also had rulings against them by the ASA for claiming that 0870 is National Rate.  Claiming that 0871 is National Rate is much worse and far more misleading.  That is why Ofcom is about to make 0871 numbers officially Premium Rate.  The only numbers that are National Rate in the UK are those starting 01 or 02 which are included in fixed price calling plans for all 01/02 numbers such as BT Option 3 or TalkTalk Talk 3 and which qualify for use with bundled inclusive minutes from mobiles.

There have been whole Ofcom consultations on this topic which someone like you interested only in the lure of revenue share seems to have taken no notice of.  See

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/ntsoptions/

and

www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nts_forward/

and

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2006/02/nr20060223

Also you can read below how unhappy people are about the use of 084 and 087 numbers because of the way add to £10 to £20 per month on most people's home phone bills (a large part of which falls into the hands of unscrupulous telecoms middlemen such as the firm which sold you your 0871 number).  0871 are a really horrible scam because they deliberately aim to prey on the idea that the code prefix is similar to 0870 which was once charged by BT at National Rate (although even then excluded from BT Option 3) but hasn't been for over two years. Whereas 0871 is a much newer invention and is a blatant covert premium rate that has never had any connection with National Rate but just aims to exploit the similarity in numbering to mislead customers.  That is why we become so angry when we see a company like yours disgracefully claiming 0871 is National Rate.

I am prepared to amend the subject of my post to say "Claims by Freeola that 0871 is a National Rate Are A Scam" rather than Scammer ISP Freeola but I am not prepared to do any more than that until such time as you either remove the claims from your website that 0871 is National Rate and replace it with the rate of the call per minute or better still replace your 0871 number for Sales with a more ethical number.  For instance you can get an 0844 number at 1p per minute at all times to your callers.  Or you could get an 0800 number from www.call08.com at just 2p per minute to you for receiving calls.  Shortly Ofcom will release 03 NGN numbers which will be charged to callers the same as 01/02 and part of inclusive call packages but your company will have to pay something for the call redirection services although less than with 0800.

NGMsGhost,

I have no idea where to start - you really need to calm down a little.

Firstly, I am perfectly happy to consider your comments on the words 0871 and national rate being used together.  Regardless of what you may think, my understanding was that this text was correct.  Naturally there is some dispute and I will seriously check this.  However, your methods of bringing this to our attention stink - accusing us of being scammers - what on earth are you on?  Why didn't you just call us or write a letter - we're perfectly accessible at Freeola.  I guess it wasn't public enough or sufficiently self-serving for you.

I'm not going to go into any great detail to defend our use of these numbers but we face a simple choice.  We can either cheapen our technical support operation by outsourcing overseas or contracting out to a call centre firm and turning it into a thoroughly poor quality option.  Or, we could put the price of all our services up and penalise even those customers who don't even avail themselves of our technical support.  We're not prepared to do that so we offer a high quality support service on the end of a 10p/minute number. And, as I said before, our customers are more than welcome to use online methods to contact us for free.

I believe you should give the British public more credit, we happen to think that they are more than capable of understanding what 10p/min means.

Now, we'll do what we need to do and you do what you want to do but DO NOT libel us and do not make claims that are untrue otherwise you and this board will hear from us again in a more formal manner.  If you want to have a constructive conversation about this you're more than welcome to call me on 0871 210 9977 (calls charged at the apparently not national rate of 10p/minute) where you can tell the operator who you are, leave your number with them and advise the operator that you would like a call back from me.  Or you can write to 92-102 East Street, Braintree, Essex CM7 3JW.

I'm unlikely to make any further comment on here - it doesn't seem very constructive.

Regards,
Danny Corder

freeola.com wrote on Nov 30^th, 2006 at 8:39am:


You still dodge the fact that your Sales number is on an 0871.  That is just really dumb.  Your Entanet competitors do not use 0871 numbers at all and especially not Sales - there is a reason.

I am perfectly justified in being upset with your company for breaching numerous guidances on the correct method of describing the cost of calls to 0871.  You clearly knew perfectly well these numbers are not National Rate since you admit you picked them because you wanted the high revenue share to prop up the costs of your technical support operation.  I'm sure there isn't a special exemption for people in Essex not having to be as aware of the structure of uk phone charges as everyone else in business is there?

The use of 0871 numbers seems to be rather in line with your general strategy since you offer an artificially subsidised subscription for 3 months but then put prices up to £5 above what your competitors are charging for the same service after that for the rest of the 12 months.  This is still not a bad deal for someone needing a new connection but not a good deal for someone needing to migrate to you.

Any damage to your company from using 0871 will be done by customer perceptions of any company that has the nerve/stupidity to use 0871 for its sales line and then to make matters worse makes deliberately misleading statements that 0871 is National Rate - consult the Advertising Standards Authority if you don't believe me.  Broadband is a highly competitive marketplace.  Also re technical support my understanding is that once customers are on board with you Entanet will do that and not your company - Freeola.  Thus it is the phone numbers offered by Entanet for support that will be the relevant issue in that regard?  I could be wrong on that point I will accept so please explain if you operate differently from www.ukfsn.org or www.adsl24.co.uk?

I don't need to calm down at all.  My upset with the inaccurate statements being made by your company about the cost of calling your 0871 numbers is perfectly justified.  It is you who needs to get on and remove the misleading claims about the cost of calling them.

NGN I'm really not interesting in your obnoxious rants about how you feel we should do business and what a terrible state the industry is in - save them for somebody who has nothing better to do.

I'm trying to be constructive here and work out if we're doing something wrong - thank you to the moderator for making things clear without the additional sermon.  I have today issued instructions to change the wording which should hopefully bring us into line with the correct standards.  Given that it already says 10p/min we clearly have nothing to hide and wish to be as honest as we can as to the costs.

For your reference, we operate our own technical support operation here in Braintree complete with short queue times and trained, helpful and knowledgeable staff.  Other Entanet resellers arrange to have Entanet to provide their support - we don't.

This really is the last post - if you have any other complaints, do it direct please - you have my details.

farci wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2006 at 2:31pm:



farci,

your link to adsl24 is different to the original link provided by the OP.

In fact the link you provided goes to adsl2go which provides the following for any contact by telephone:

For any enquiries or for further information please contact us on 0906 470 0359    or you can write to us at:

ADSL2GO
101 Abercorn Street
Paisley
PA3 4AT